tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post6646074290144903735..comments2018-02-21T10:49:33.180-05:00Comments on In the Middle: Everything We Think Can in Principle Be Thought By Someone Else: A Plea for Open, Collective ScholarshipJeffrey Cohenhttps://plus.google.com/110433684739546897626noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-47929127728095530642011-09-10T12:58:00.562-04:002011-09-10T12:58:00.562-04:00Thanks, again, for everyone&#39;s comments here an...Thanks, again, for everyone&#39;s comments here and for the kind words. As to the similarities between blogging and teaching, BLB, I hadn&#39;t really thought of that until you raised the question. I think blogging IS, actually, an extension of teaching, in many many ways. I want to think further about this.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-80133283896233048912011-09-10T08:02:56.415-04:002011-09-10T08:02:56.415-04:00with so many academics living in the past (as in t...with so many academics living in the past (as in the glow of the 70&#39;s)it is so refreshing to see someone not just coming to terms with the realities of today but actively fashioning new ways of reaching out (literally extending minds) to make a difference in our lives together. thanks for the shot of hope.<br />-dmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-55063312180618758622011-09-09T02:08:49.250-04:002011-09-09T02:08:49.250-04:00Thanks for your response, Eileen. (And apologies ...Thanks for your response, Eileen. (And apologies for making you think I work on W Malmesbury - he was a random example.) <br /><br />I have also thought that putting ideas out there on the net shows that you are currently working on these things, which should protect against &#39;stealing&#39; of ideas. Which is a good reason to blog under your own name, I guess. Perhaps it&#39;s easier to protect your own work, while discussing it with others, in the digital age.zcat_abroadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07768195593099574501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-69484515416391558962011-09-08T23:51:35.502-04:002011-09-08T23:51:35.502-04:00Absolutely stirring and inspiringly utopian -- tha...Absolutely stirring and inspiringly utopian -- thank you for this. I love this post, and it also sparks a question for me. I&#39;d be intrigued to hear what folks would say about how teaching might fit into this set of goals -- since teaching, interpreted one way, might also fit the model of constantly developing, shared, collaborative, tentative, and public scholarship. How much are blogging and teaching similar endeavors?BLBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-8998267046067581722011-09-08T18:47:12.699-04:002011-09-08T18:47:12.699-04:00@ndh: thanks so much for your kind comments here. ...@ndh: thanks so much for your kind comments here. Yes, as you indicate, I&#39;m sue that every now and then someone really does steal someone else&#39;s idea, gets away with it, and even gets praised for it [perhaps even advances their career as a result]. I know of one case where someone&#39;s dissertation was stolen in this way, and successfully, but I guess another thing I would say, that I didn&#39;t say in my reply to zcat_abroad, is that even when something like this happens, and the thief &quot;gets away with it,&quot; that we still have to work against the climate that would make us fearful about sharing our work. You seem to already know that: bravo.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-15627404257577799012011-09-08T14:41:09.636-04:002011-09-08T14:41:09.636-04:00Steal this blog post.
Thanks for this today.Steal this blog post.<br /><br />Thanks for this today.jenboylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14562323018839311706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-81694043690186326252011-09-08T12:50:56.758-04:002011-09-08T12:50:56.758-04:00Eileen, I liked this piece a lot -- as I&#39;ve li...Eileen, I liked this piece a lot -- as I&#39;ve liked everything Of yours I&#39;ve ever read (i know that&#39;s not the sort of feedback youwhose lack youvwere lamenting, but just the same -- )<br />1.Plagiarism/stealing -- like you, I know of several cases, but unlike you, I also know of some which have resulted in recognition, etc.for the thief rather than the true author -- some cases very sad indeed.<br />2. Nonetheless, I feel the strenght of your argument -- for years I refused to even contemplate joint work, znd tgen when I finally did some, found it so rewarding that for the last 10-12 years of my pre-retirement, I hardlly did anything else. There are still thigns I would do alone ( some so as not to risk afriend gettibg stuck with bad reactions to my own slightly screwy approach to some scholarly problems) but I recommend that everybody try collaborating to find oyt how rewarding it can be.ndhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09139965862593143866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-35994514671880645062011-09-08T11:14:37.311-04:002011-09-08T11:14:37.311-04:00@zcat_abroad Thanks for your comments here, and le...@zcat_abroad Thanks for your comments here, and let me see if I can speak to your fear of scholars stealing each other&#39;s ideas. It&#39;s not that this never happens [I know a few stories], but in every case where I know it has happened, it never actually derailed anyone&#39;s career nor hindered someone from getting a job, and aside from the VERY FEW [practically NONE] cases where scholars have gotten away with this, I would argue that you actually can&#39;t steal someone else&#39;s ideas [in other words, most cases of intellectual property hijacking are botched in some serious way]: our ideas are simply too UNIQUE to be able to be stolen without &quot;collateral damage&quot; to the thief. This is something I really believe: your ideas and approaches to Malmesbury are likely un-stealable; also, imagine the lack of scruples and non-conscience necessary to steal someone else&#39;s idea: it&#39;s a lot of work and the number of people willing to live with themselves to do such a thing can be counted, I really believe, on one hand.<br /><br />I realize that, in medieval studies, there are certain &quot;finds&quot; that happen occasionally [a text no one has yet discovered, for example, that might shed new light on the tradition of French romance, a new burial mound that radically changes what we think we know about Anglo-Saxon England, etc.] that scholars guard with a certain amount of secrecy, but for how long? Eventually, the text has to be edited and published, the contents of the burial mound brushed off and tagged and exhibited, and then it&#39;s all fair game for everyone, interpretation-wise, and it needs to be, because we need to recognize better that we hold these scholarly objects *in common* together.<br /><br />The fact of the matter is, zcat_abroad, that I find two things very pernicious that are told to graduate students and beginning-career scholars on a regular basis [by some, but not all, professors], that:<br /><br />1. don&#39;t share/air your work too broadly because someone else might steal it, and,<br /><br />2. don&#39;t share/air your work until you&#39;re absolutely certain your argument is 100% air-tight or you&#39;ll be humiliated and no one will take you seriously.<br /><br />These are such self- and I would also say &quot;larger profession&quot;-damaging precepts to live by. We need to think better of our colleagues than this and also work harder to institute safer mentoring relationships, where students, or recent PhDs, are encouraged to enter into communal discourse over their work-in-progress [with fellow students but also with early career and established scholars in the field], so that we can also work to horizontalize the field: you never know where the next nest idea will come from--possibly from anywhere, and I&#39;m not sure hierarchies ever really accomplish anything beneficial, field development-wise. We&#39;re all learning all of the time and sure, some people have extra wisdom to offer, but sometimes that &quot;wisdom&quot; comes from the younger and not the more senior people in the field; other times, the best advice *does* come from those with more experience; the bottom line is: openness and a collective will to see everyone&#39;s professional well-being enhanced are the career modes we should be developing here.<br /><br />For myself, I try to put my money where my mouth is, which is why I blog, why I/we founded BABEL, why I/we founded postmedieval, punctum books, etc. I try not to just TALK about a more welcoming, radically democratic, and open field: I try to build platforms where this kind of field can be developed while also lending to those who are most vulnerable an imprimatur of professional legitimacy, and also, new fields of &quot;play.&quot; I hope this makes some sense.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-50744008518264559282011-09-08T07:26:08.528-04:002011-09-08T07:26:08.528-04:00The video of Jansen&#39;s work at the end of this ...The video of Jansen&#39;s work at the end of this post made my day. At first the spine of the &quot;beest&quot; ripples beautifully but the creature seems strangely immobile, despite the frenzied circling of the camera (on a truck?). Then Jansen pulls the switch and -- the camera now rooted in place -- the thing <em>moves</em>. It&#39;s stunning, and the dance the film creates between points of view nicely actualizes what your essay is about, Eileen.<br /><br />Certain works of solitude achieve something that more gregarious ones perhaps do not, because they aspire to the stillness of acclaim rather than the kineticism of conversation (which requires stuttering, awkward silences, and mistakes). The perfect books, the ones crafted after years of lonely research and careful checking and rechecking of their facts and translations and claims: these books are launched into the world to be admired, but they resist negotiation and interchange. They don&#39;t move. <br /><br />That is what some scholars want, and achieve; I don&#39;t think such an academic would blog. Thus your sorrow that Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages -- conceptualized as a spur to dialogue rather than an endpoint or &quot;product&quot; -- hasn&#39;t had the reviews and hasn&#39;t triggered the public exchanges that you aimed for. You didn&#39;t want the book to be applauded so much as to be part of an ongoing conversation. At least, that&#39;s what I hope for with my books. The best thing that can happen to them is that once they are released like strandbeesten they roam to places I didn&#39;t expect them to go. Eventually, I hope, they wind up as fossils (that is, as surpassed but absorbed into something else, something with vectors of its own). A book&#39;s life is this movement.<br /><br />Great post.Jeffrey J. Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-18402070909281123682011-09-08T01:59:24.588-04:002011-09-08T01:59:24.588-04:00This is a really interesting post/article. I agre...This is a really interesting post/article. I agree that it is much more productive to be able to discuss ideas with people, and for those of us who are working almost alone, it is very encouraging to be able to engage with others who understand why you&#39;re so passionate about [William of Malmesbury]. This is one of the reasons I&#39;ve been following various medieval-flavoured blogs: precisely because, working alone (there is one other medievalist in my department, currently head-down finishing her dissertation) is slow and occasionally discouraging. Discussions with others lead to neurons firing which may have otherwise lay dormant, and increase energy and enthusiasm for the topic. (And cross-pollination, where discussion on one topic sparks ideas on another are also invaluable, and hard to produce alone in your study.)<br /><br />The one thing that worries me, as an attempting academic (PhD in hand, and now seeking employment on something slightly longer than a 4 month basis), is the threat of people stealing your ideas. I don&#39;t even know if this actually happens on a regular basis, or if it is some Hallowe&#39;en story sent to scare us. If one is more open about one&#39;s topic, if one blogs about this point which Malmesbury makes, what is the danger that someone else will take that idea and publish it before you do?zcat_abroadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07768195593099574501noreply@blogger.com